Upon Reflection, We'll See What Ucf Really Is

Steve Orsini is packing a moving van and heading for Orlando. Except for his wife and daughter, the most important thing he'll be bringing is a mirror.

Get ready, UCF. It's time to take a good look at yourself.

Will you see the reflection of an athletic program that's ready to bust out? Or have you been fooling yourself into seeing something that's just not there?

"I feel there is great potential here," Orsini said.

We've been hearing the Sleeping Giant talk for a long time, and it might be true. It's just that after a while, you get tired of words.

Sooner or later, it's time to turn potential into wins, fans and facilities. That takes a lot of things, but it all begins with money.

Enter Orsini, who starts work Monday as athletic director. He spent most of the past week whirling around Orlando, readying himself to pose the question usually asked job applicants. Where do you see yourself in five years, UCF?

Playing respectable football in the Mid-American Conference in front of 25,000 fans? Thrilled over making the NIT basketball field?

Or do you envision a football team quickly outgrowing its league in front of a packed Citrus Bowl? Jim Nantz announcing the Golden Knights are being sent to the NCAA Tournament's Western Regional against UCLA?

Orsini believes in the second scenario, which makes you wonder if UCF drug-tests job applicants. The 46-year-old exudes energy and dreams. He doesn't even hesitate when he talks about the Golden Knights joining the SEC or ACC, doubling their athletic budget and building a 12,000-seat basketball arena that actually needs 12,000 seats.

He wants UCF to become a lot more like FSU and Florida, and a lot less like Bowling Green or Ball State. That image gnaws at many UCF backers, but facts are facts.

The booster club has raised about $300,000 this year. You can find that much loose change under the sofa cushions after Bull Gator meetings.

Yes, FSU and Florida have been around longer and all that. But UCF didn't just fall from the sky. It has been around 34 years and is headed toward 40,000 enrollment. Yet only 847 people have donated to the latest fund drive?

Football has been around less than 20 years. It wasn't all that much earlier that FSU and Miami were so bad and unpopular, they were considering dropping their programs.

UCF has had its moments and has made progress. But moments don't make a program, and the MAC isn't the Big East.

You can blame history, the media, SEC officiating or the fact Daunte Culpepper's mom didn't have more sons. But you can't consistently compete with the big boys if you pay your coach one-tenth of Ron Zook's salary.

Orsini is going to bang on corporate doors, fans' doors, maybe your door. He is going to force UCF to put up or shut up.

"I think I'm the type of athletic director UCF is calling for right now," Orsini said.

There is nothing wrong with the MAC, and simply being a solid athletic program at a good school. But eventually, you need to admit you are what you are. And that's all you'll ever be.

So what is UCF?

Is the new boss deluded or a visionary? Is there enough support out there to fund the dream?